Uploads from cliff1066™, tagged waxmuseum

Michael Jackson

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:21:15 -0700

Jackson died on June 25, 2009 from a drug overdose, amidst preparations for his This Is It concert series. Before his death, Jackson had reportedly been administered drugs such as propofol and lorazepam. The Los Angeles County Coroner concluded that his death was a homicide. Prosecutors formally charged his personal physician with involuntary manslaughter. Jackson's death triggered a global outpouring of grief, and was estimated that as many as a billion people around the world may have watched his public memorial service on live television. On March 16, 2010, Sony Music Entertainment signed a record-breaking $250 million deal with Jackson's estate to retain distribution rights to his recordings until 2017 and release seven posthumous albums over the next decade.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson

Gangsters

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:21:46 -0700

cliff1066™ posted a photo:

George Moran "George Bugs Moran, Al Capone" Scarface" & Jack McGurn "Jack Machine Gun McGurn"

Michael Jackson

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:20:43 -0700

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Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter, dancer, actor, choreographer, businessman, philanthropist and record producer. Referred to as the King of Pop, he is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time while also being regarded as one of the most influential. His contributions to music, dance and fashion, and a much-publicized personal life made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.

Jackson made his debut alongside his brothers in 1964 as lead singer and youngest member of The Jackson 5. His solo career started in 1971. He produced ten studio albums. The 1982 album Thriller remains the best-selling album of all time, having sold more than 110 million copies worldwide. Four of his other albums rank among the world's best-sellers. Jackson is credited with having elevated the music video from mere promotional tool into an art form. His videos for Billie Jean, Beat It and Thriller made him the first African American artist to amass a strong crossover following on MTV. He popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk. His distinctive musical style, vocal style, and choreography continue to transcend generational, racial and cultural boundaries.

Jackson has been inducted into twelve music halls of fame, more than any other act. He is one of the very few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Other achievements include several Guinness World Records (including the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time); 15 Grammy Awards (including the Living Legend Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award); 26 American Music Awards (more than any other artist, and including recognition as Artist of the Century); 17 number-one singles in the US (including four as a member of The Jackson 5); and estimated global sales of over 780 million records, making him one of the best-selling recording artists ever. Jackson's personal life and relationships generated controversy for years. His changing appearance was noticed from the late 1970s onwards, as changes to his nose and skin color caused much media speculation. In 1993 he was accused of child sexual abuse, though no formal charges were brought. In 2005 he was tried and acquitted of similar allegations.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson

Elvis Presley

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:25:04 -0700

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Conscripted into military service in 1958, Presley relaunched his recording career two years later with some of his most commercially successful work. He staged few concerts, however, and, guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood movies and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided. In 1968, after seven years away from the stage, he returned to live performance in a celebrated comeback television special that led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of profitable tours. In 1973, Presley staged the first concert broadcast globally via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii, seen by approximately 1.5 billion viewers. Prescription drug abuse severely compromised his health, and he died suddenly in 1977 at the age of 42.

Presley is regarded as one of the most important figures of 20th-century popular culture. He had a versatile voice and unusually wide success encompassing many genres, including country, pop ballads, gospel, and blues. He is the best-selling solo artist in the history of popular music. Nominated for 14 competitive Grammys, he won three, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36. He has been inducted into four music halls of fame.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis

Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne)

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:22:23 -0700

cliff1066™ posted a photo:

Herman "Malkin" Munster, 5th Earl of Shroudshire (born "Herman Malkin" alone), is a fictional character in the CBS sitcom The Munsters, played by Fred Gwynne. The patriarch of the Munster household, Herman is an entity much like Frankenstein's monster along with Lurch on the show's competitor The Addams Family.

Due to the thickness of his costume and the heat of the studio lights, Gwynne continually fought enormous weight loss from perspiration, even after consuming gallons of lemonade and salt tablets and using an air hose inside of his costume.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Munster

Cardinal Richelieu

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:24:14 -0700

cliff1066™ posted a photo:

Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu (9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642) was a French clergyman, noble, and statesman.

Consecrated as a bishop in 1608, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Church and the state, becoming a cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he fostered.

The Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the King's "Chief Minister" or "First Minister." As a result, he is considered to be the world's first Prime Minister, in the modern sense of the term. He sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve this goal. His tenure was marked by the Thirty Years' War that engulfed Europe.

Richelieu was also famous for his patronage of the arts; most notably, he founded the Académie française, the learned society responsible for matters pertaining to the French language. Richelieu is also known by the sobriquet l'Éminence rouge ("the Red Eminence"), from the red shade of a cardinal's vestments and the style "eminence" as a cardinal.

As an advocate for Samuel de Champlain and of the retention of Quebec, he founded the Compagnie des Cent-Associés and saw the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye return Quebec City to French rule under Champlain, after the settlement had been captured by the Kirkes in 1629. This in part allowed the colony to eventually develop into the heartland of Francophone culture in North America.

He is also a leading character in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père and its subsequent film adaptations, portrayed as a main antagonist, and a powerful ruler, even more powerful than the King himself, though events like the Day of the Dupes show that in fact he very much depended on the King's confidence to keep this power.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu

Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne)

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:22:08 -0700

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Thomas Gainsborough & Rembrandt

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:23:15 -0700

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George Frideric Handel

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:20:03 -0700

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George Frideric Handel (23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-English Baroque composer who is famous for his operas, oratorios, and concertos. Handel was born in Germany in the same year as JS Bach and Domenico Scarlatti. He received critical musical training in Italy before settling in London and becoming a naturalised British subject. His works include Messiah, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks. He was strongly influenced by the techniques of the great composers of the Italian Baroque and the English composer Henry Purcell. Handel's music was well-known to many composers, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven..

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel

Tiger Woods

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:22:51 -0700

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Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Currently the World No. 1, he was the highest-paid professional athlete in 2008, having earned an estimated $110 million from winnings and endorsements.

Woods has won 14 professional major golf championships, the second highest of any male player, and 71 PGA Tour events, third all time. He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour. Additionally, Woods is only the second golfer, after Jack Nicklaus, to have achieved a career Grand Slam three times. Woods has won 16 World Golf Championships, and has won at least one of those events each of the 11 years they have been in existence.

Woods has held the number one position in the world rankings for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record ten times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has the record of leading the money list in nine different seasons.

On December 11, 2009, Woods announced he would take an indefinite leave from professional golf to focus on his marriage after he admitted infidelity. His multiple infidelities were revealed by over a dozen mistresses, through many worldwide media sources. On March 16, 2010, he announced that he will be playing in the 2010 Masters.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Woods

Britney Spears

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:20:23 -0700

cliff1066™ posted a photo:

Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American pop singer and entertainer. Born in Mississippi and raised in Louisiana, Spears first appeared on national television in 1992 as a contestant on the Star Search program. At age 12 she performed as a cast member in Disney Channel's television series The All New Mickey Mouse Club from 1993 to 1994. In 1997, Spears signed a recording contract with Jive, which would lead to the release of her debut album ...Baby One More Time in 1999. The album peaked at number one in Billboard 200 and has since sold over 25 million copies worldwide. Her success continued with the release of her second studio album, Oops!... I Did It Again in 2000, which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. The release of her first 2 albums established her as a pop icon and credited for influencing the revival of teen pop in the late 1990s.

In 2001, she released her third studio album Britney and played as the starring role in the film Crossroads. She assumed creative control of her fourth studio album, In the Zone released in 2003, which made her the only female artist of the Nielsen Soundscan era to have her first four albums debut at number one. After the release of her first greatest hits album Greatest Hits: My Prerogative , Spears experienced personal struggles and her career went under hiatus. This was until her fifth studio album, Blackout was released in 2007. Her sixth studio album, Circus was released in 2008, and also debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart with the hit single "Womanizer" which became Spears second single to peaked at number one in Billboard Hot 100 since her debut single, nearly 10 years later. In late 2009, Spears released The Singles Collection which includes her third number one hit single in the United States entitled "3".

As of late 2007, Spears has sold over 85 million albums worldwide. On December 11, 2009 Billboard Magazine named Spears as one of the best selling act of the 2000s, solely based on album sales as well as the 8th overall best act of the decade based on album sales, chart success, and cultural relativity. She is ranked as the eight best-selling female recording artist in the U.S., having sold more than 32 million copies of her albums and all certified by the Recording Industry Association of America. Britney is currently the fifth best-selling artist act of the decade in the country, as well as the top-selling female album artist. Spears is also ranked by Forbes 2009 issue as the 13th most powerful celebrity, and with earnings of over $35 million dollars in 2009, the 2nd-highest earning young musician of the year. Spears made history in the music industry when four of her albums made the Billboards top 20 biggest-opening-week albums of the decade.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany_Spears

Founding Fathers

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:15:58 -0700

cliff1066™ posted a photo:

Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Nathan Hale, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams & James Madison

Founding Fathers

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:16:25 -0700

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James Monroe, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin

Johann Sebastian Bach

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:17:57 -0700

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Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March 1685 [O.S. 21 March] – 28 July 1750) (often referred to simply as Bach) was a German composer, organist, violist, and violinist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity. Although he did not introduce new forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust contrapuntal technique, an unrivalled control of harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France.

Revered for their intellectual depth, technical command and artistic beauty, Bach's works include the Brandenburg concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Partitas, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Mass in B Minor, the St Matthew Passion, the St John Passion, the Magnificat, The Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue, the English and French Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, the Cello Suites, more than 200 surviving cantatas, and a similar number of organ works, including the celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D minor and Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor.

Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now regarded as the supreme composer of the Baroque, and as one of the greatest of all time.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach

Frédéric Chopin

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:19:22 -0700

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Frédéric François Chopin, in Polish Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music.

Chopin was born in the village of Zelazowa Wola, in the Duchy of Warsaw, to a French-expatriate father and Polish mother. He was considered a child-prodigy pianist. At the age of 20, on 2 November 1830, he left Warsaw for Austria, intending to go on to Italy. The outbreak of the Polish November Uprising 27 days later, and its subsequent suppression by the Russian Empire, led to his becoming one of many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration.

In Paris, Chopin made a comfortable living as a composer and piano teacher, while giving few public performances. Though an ardent Polish patriot, in France he used the French versions of his given names and traveled on a French passport, possibly to avoid having to rely on Imperial Russian documents. After ill-fated romantic involvements with Polish women, from 1837 to 1847 he had a turbulent relationship with the French novelist Aurore Dupin, better known by her pseudonym, George Sand. For the greater part of his life Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849, aged thirty-nine, of pulmonary tuberculosis.

The great majority of Chopin's compositions were written for the piano as solo instrument. Though technically demanding, they emphasize nuance and expressive depth rather than sheer virtuosity. Chopin invented musical forms such as the instrumental ballade and was responsible for major innovations in the piano sonata, mazurka, waltz, nocturne, polonaise, étude, impromptu and prélude.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%c3%a9d%c3%a9ric_Chopin

Potter's Wax Museum

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:34:15 -0700

cliff1066™ posted a photo:

George L. Potter started the wax museum in 1949, it is Florida's first wax museum, and the attraction is purportedly the first wax museum in the United States.

They have over 50 years of experience and after a visit to their museum, you will see how each figure is a work of art that can take up to several months to complete.

George Potter, the original owner, and creator of most figures, was a designer for Madame Trusseau's wax museum in London. After he passed away in the early 1980's, his longtime manager and her family purchased the museum estate.

Leonardo Da Vinci & Michelangelo

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:23:32 -0700

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Thomas Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Michelangelo

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:23:54 -0700

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Elvis Presley

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:24:39 -0700

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Elvis Aaron (or Aron) Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".

Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954 when Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, eager to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience, saw in Presley the means to realize his ambition. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was one of the originators of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage the singer for over two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", released in January 1956, was a number one hit. He became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis

Ludwig van Beethoven

nobody@flickr.com (cliff1066™) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:19:01 -0700

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Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 1770[1] – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music, and remains one of the most acclaimed and influential composers of all time.

Born in Bonn, of the Electorate of Cologne and a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in present-day Germany, he moved to Vienna in his early twenties and settled there, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate in the late 1790s, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven